''Kaernefeltia'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

in the family

Parmeliaceae The Parmeliaceae is a large and diverse family of Lecanoromycetes. With over 2700 species in 71 genera, it is the largest family of lichen-forming fungi. The most speciose genera in the family are the well-known groups: '' Xanthoparmelia'' ( 822 ...

Taxonomy

''Kaernefeltia'' was

circumscribed In geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a polygon is a circle that passes through all the vertices of the polygon. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter and its radius is called the circumradius. Not every polyg ...

by lichenologists Arne Thell and Trevor Goward in 1996 to contain the western North American species formerly known as ''Cetraria californica'' (the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

) and ''C. merrillii''. The genus name honours Swedish lichenologist

Ingvar Kärnefelt Jan Eric Ingvar Kärnefelt (born 1944) is a Swedish lichenologist. Early life and education Kärnefelt was born in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1944. His initial goal in his higher-level studies at University of Cologne in 1966–1967 was to become ...

. In 2017, Divakar and colleagues used a recently developed "temporal phylogenetic" approach to identify temporal bands for specific taxonomic ranks in the family Parmeliaceae, suggesting that groups of species that diverged within the time window of 29.45–32.55 million years ago represent genera. They proposed to synonymize ''Kaernefeltia'' with ''

Nephromopsis ''Nephromopsis'' is a genus of lichenized fungi within the Parmeliaceae The Parmeliaceae is a large and diverse family of Lecanoromycetes. With over 2700 species in 71 genera, it is the largest family of lichen-forming fungi. The most spec ...

'', along with several other Parmelioid genera, so that all the genera within the Parmeliaceae are about the same age. Although some of their proposed taxonomic changes were accepted, the synonymization of the Parmelioid genera with ''Nephromopsis'' was not accepted in a recent analysis.

Species

*'' Kaernefeltia californica'' *'' Kaernefeltia iberica'' *'' Kaernefeltia merrillii'' ''Kaernefeltia iberica'' was published invalidly, as it lacked a citation of an identifier from a registration depository.

References

Parmeliaceae Lichen genera Lecanorales genera Taxa described in 1996 {{Parmeliaceae-stub